


Reality Bites

by Britpacker



Series: Three Ways [2]
Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-23
Updated: 2011-05-23
Packaged: 2018-08-15 17:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8064778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: Behind the bonhomie, Trip Tucker is quite an observant man. Unfortunately.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).
> 
> **Author's notes:** ISet on the morning after the events of "Love, Three Ways".

Well I'll be damned. 

Lately Jon's been acting kind of off, and being the good friend I am I've been watching pretty close, trying to figure out why. Last night, when he sat staring into his coffee cup in the observation lounge, ignoring me and Malcolm on the couch, the thought ran through my head that hell, maybe the big guy's jealous! I mean, how hilarious would that be?

Right now, having seen him out the corner of my eye watching us leave his private mess together... Well, either Chef didn't finish scrambling those eggs or this watery, sick feeling in my guts is realisation kicking in. Big-time.

But he's _straight_. 

I mean, think of all the times we've picked up women together. Hell, we made a better tag team than me and Malcolm did before we saw sense, maybe because the ladies knew we weren't secretly mooning over each other. Me and Jon, we've been like brothers for more than ten years. If he was attracted to guys, I would've known. 

He would have trusted me enough to tell me.

Mal's not noticed me spacing out, which kind of shows how excited he is that he's gotten permission to start modifying the phase cannon targeting scanners. He even kisses my cheek before skipping out the turbolift, and who'd have imagined our resident British military type would do _that_ a couple of months ago? 

Not me, and that's a fact.

I've got no time to dwell on it, though; gotta scuttle to my office and lock the door, pretend I'm busy on staff performance reviews while I'm really wrapping my head around the suspicions that are driving me crazy. 

I can't get it out of my head that my best friend could be in love with my boyfriend.

Even though I'm pretty sure my best friend prefers girls. I know Mal's special, but surely that's going to extremes?

Jon cares about him, I know that: not about Lieutenant Reed, Armoury/Chief Tactical Officer. He cares about Malcolm, same as he does Hoshi, me, Travis, Chef, Cunningham, Rostov... hell, every being, human or alien that wears the Enterprise patch on their sleeve. But that's normal, right? A good captain looks out for his crew as more than just name and rank. 

Aw, hell!

I remember (like I can forget!) the time Mal got spiked to the outer hull with a nasty skinny piece of Romulan metal. How determined Johnny was to save him, when the Romulans, T'Pol, even Malcolm himself insisted the only way to protect eighty two crewmen and a beagle was to cut the last man loose. I didn't think about it too deeply then (c'mon Tucker, you were too scared to think at all) but maybe there was more than a captain's concern for a crewman in Jon's cussed determination to _find a way._

Whoa, Trip: what about the look on his face when T'Pol mentioned Lieutenant Reed's _minor injuries_ from a beating by a hoard of disappointed Suliban? Minor my ass! Three cracked ribs and a face even his Momma wouldn't know (there again, with what I've heard about his folks maybe that's not saying much). Jon was so relieved to be back in the right century I didn't think he heard a word that was being said, but when the Vulcan Priestess said _that_ , his face just dropped. Could he have been in love even then?

Yes. The searching looks, the cautious _come-join-me-for-breakfast-Lieutenant_ efforts at making friends... a million and one little hints are clicking together inside my skull now, like a jigsaw just pulling itself together while I sit on my hands. The panic in his voice over the comm. when Mal was slowly steaming in a faulty EV suit - the day I came to my senses; all the reproachful looks my way when, sunk in grief, I yelled at my most compassionate friend for trying to help; all those small smiles from the big chair back toward the tactical station I've seen over the years. 

Sonofabitch. How did I miss _those_ signs? 

I must be the most bone-headed, self-obsessed idiot this side of Eternity not to have seen the devastation in his eyes while I was casually ripping out his heart to jump on in hobnails. 

That was the morning after our first night, when I was so damn happy I had to tell somebody or burst. Word must've gotten 'round the whole ship before I got near the galley that the Chief Engineer was wandering around the corridors with the kind of grin on his face that usually means Phlox has been a tad too friendly doling out the post-trauma happy juice.

I can see him now, stood in the middle of his private mess with breakfast steaming on the table beside him. One hand up to stop my babbling and a big smile on his face. "Trip, I'm happy for you, but I _really_ don't need to know what my Chief Engineer is doing behind closed doors with my Armoury Officer."

How come I didn't see the heartbreak right in front of me? How did he tell that bare-faced lie and not be secretly planning a little accident involving an engineer, a maintenance shaft and a faulty exterior hatch?

Shit, why couldn't I have broken it gently? Why did I have to bust right out with it? 

"He loves me, Jon. Malcolm _loves_ me!"

My memory must be playing tricks, because the way I'm remembering, I've seen people cut through with Klingon disruptors who've flinched less. "So, you finally got around to telling him."

"I didn't mean to." I didn't even question how he'd known my secret. Isn't there some line about the eyes of a man in love? If not, I think I just invented one.

"Hell Jon, I didn't even know where I was going 'til I wound up at his door in the middle of the night, sweatin' like a pig on a spit and all het up from the nightmares..."

Very quietly he damn near admitted his own. "He frightened us all yesterday, Trip."

"You're never letting him out on the hull in an EV suit again, you hear me?" I spun round and flopped into his usual chair, my legs stretched right out, while he just stood there like some kind of heroic statue outside the Academy. You know, all isolated, proud and untouchable.

I bet he wished he was one while I steamed straight on, determined to tell him all about the most incredible night of my life.

"He must've thought I'd gone crazy; heck, he probably wasn't wrong!"

He wasn't. Running through the hallways in my blues and a blanket, eyes out on stalks and sweat streaming down my face... The Big Man upstairs (as Grandma Tucker would've said) was on my side that nobody saw and called for Phlox and a tranquiliser gun.

"He looked so gorgeous and so - so _delicate_ , damn it, standin' there all rumpled and sleepy, blinkin' up at me! _Wha's the matter, Triip?_ Never knew he could drawl better'n a natural-born Southern boy..."

Okay, so maybe _my half-asleep Malcolm_ impression wasn't great, but it got the nearest to a real smile that day out of Jon. "Gawd Cap'n, if you'd seen him! I tried to apologise for wakin' him, said somethin' about never letting him out of my sight again..."

"Trip, when Malcolm gets into trouble you're usually right there beside him!"

"That's what he said." Not that I'd paid much attention; it's tough to focus on what your fantasy lover's saying when he's mostly naked, drowsy-eyed and swaying into your personal space. "I felt like such a tongue-tied jerk, just mumbling and stammerin' about how scared I'd been watchin' him boil... the words came out before ah could stop 'em..."

I hate the way my accent thickens up when I'm real emotional. Malcolm says it's a _real turn-on_ , but to myself I just sound - dumb.

"Jon, his eyes just lit up!! And I guess mine did the same back then, and I didn't notice the way Johnny's face scrunched like he'd swallowed wormwood. "He kinda gasped and peeped at me under his lashes and damn, didn't that just melt my heart? And I said: Malcolm, are you mad?

"He did that wettin' his lips thing, y' know? Real slow and sexy, and you know he's got no idea about the show he's puttin' on. Said _I think I'm delirious, actually. Perhaps I should've listened to Phlox for a change. Excuse me, Doctor, but I could've sworn I just heard the Chief Engineer say he loves me. I'm obviously hallucinating_."

I couldn't get the words out through laughing; it was so unreal, and there was Jon, my best friend, staring down like I'd mutated into a Suliban right in front of him. "And then he kissed me, Jon! Can you believe it? Malcolm Reed got up on his tippy-toes and _kissed_ me. 

"Hell, if I'd known he could use his tongue like that I'd've taken mah chances and slammed him up against the bulkhead first time we had a fight! I've done some kissin' in my time, and let me tell you: I ain't met anyone who can kiss like Malcolm.â€

That's where he stopped me. Right at the _interesting bit_ , with me ready to spill all the dirty details about how we'd gotten tangled up in rumpled sheets, and how big and firm and _fine_ Mal's dick feels in my hands. He's sat back, folded his hands in his lap and listened to all my morning-afters in the past: never turned a hair, however wild they've been (and never called me on the exaggerations either; I'm not the stud monkey folks seem to think). And I, all wrapped up in my Malcolm haze, thought he was just being a responsible C.O. 

"Sorry." I've never been less sorry in my life, and I guess it showed. "Malcolm'd kill me if he thought I was discussin' our sex life with you."

_Our sex life_. I had to move my hands south damn fast just thinking it.

Jon probably noticed that, too.

All he did was nod. "Trip, you may be the luckiest man in the universe," he said, and King Dumb of the Dumbass People still didn't get it. Looking back I'm sure his voice broke a little as he kicked me out with a slice of toast in my hand. "Just try not to screw this one up, okay?"

I hope Malcolm never realises how long the Captain's been mooning over him. He's done nothing to lead the guy on, but Mal never feels complete without some black cloud of guilt or self-reproach hanging over his head. He'd feel like shit.

It's bad enough one of us is doing that. Hell that's my best friend, and I'm thinkin' I've helped break his heart. How am I supposed to feel?

Guilty as hell. You know, I really wish I could.

But I can't regret his disappointment, because that'd mean wishing Mal wasn't mine. Which would mean wishing the best thing in my life was out of it. Jesus, what a mess!

Maybe I should talk to him. _Say, Jon, how come you never told me you go for small, dark and handsome with a lethally sexy accent? Hey, Cap'n, wanna bet I was ass over elbow in love with him before you?_

That's a bet I'd win. I started falling for that uptight, prickly little dynamo the first time I saw him; it just took a while for me to figure it out and act on it. Still, as an opening gambit, it stinks.

You know what's even worse? I can't believe he never even told me he liked guys.

Maybe he was scared I'd hit on him if I knew. I've never made my bisexuality secret and Jon knows I'm attracted to strong characters. Jeez, how to make a guy feel worse about himself! Has he spent eleven years lying in some weird attempt to protect our friendship?

Shit. I wish I could've stayed oblivious. I don't usually find that (as Malcolm points out most days with a Y in them) exactly difficult.

Look on the bright side, Trip. I can be a tad _short-sighted_ where feelings are concerned. Maybe I'm misinterpreting things. Maybe Jon's just feeling the loneliness of command, and seeing the two of us - the next most senior humans out this far - together is getting him down. Maybe he'd get that same drowned puppy look seeing T'Pol gettin' it on with a Klingon. It must be a while since he got laid.

And if Malcolm caught me speculating about a superior officer's sex life, I'd be struggling to get any, ever again. Gotta be tough when your dick's been torn off and stuffed up your own asshole.

Now I'm smiling again, imagining my _ever-so-proper_ boyfriend's disapproval. How am I going to tell him what I can't get out of my head?

I'm not. I won't tell him, and I can't ask Jon. He'd be mortified, whether I'm right or wrong. Our friendship means too much for me to risk it on my warp 8 mouth. 

He's trying to protect that friendship. I'm amazed (again) how stupid I am, because when I stop and think about Johnny Archer, I know immediately what he's doing. He loves me; his best buddy. Okay, it's a different love to the one I'm guessing he feels for Mal, but it's no less real. 

And whatever his romantic feelings, he cares for Malcolm. I mean _really_ cares, not as a potential lover (hey, I wonder if Starfleet realises its three most senior officers - you can't count T'Pol, she's Vulcan - are all bi. What'd the odds be on that?) - but as a loyal friend. He won't risk what we have for something that can never be. Jon's too good for that.

So I have to be the same. I have to pretend I haven't guessed his secret, and I have to make sure Malcolm never figures it out. Slow dance with my man at ship's functions and not let myself see the pain in my captain's eyes while he sits all alone in a corner. Worship my love's perfect body every night and thank God I came to my senses and won him before a better man could make his move.

Because given a choice, which of us is the better man? Jonathan Archer. Malcolm could have had him, but he never even gave him a glance. 

He wanted me. 

Damn. I'm supposed to be feeling bad about Jon, and every time I remember what's hurting him my heart just about busts out through my ribcage with joy. Because Malcolm Reed is in love with me, and that makes me - as Johnny said himself the day I blurted out the news that broke his heart - the luckiest man in the universe.


End file.
